Tag: tumblr

Lessons Learned

The Social Media Bunnies took on this Social Media Marketing challenge by finding topics that interested us and collaborating to write fun blog posts. The first strength we recognized in our team was the comfortability with different social media platforms. Pooling our networks and social media accounts, we decided to market on Reddit, Tumblr, Facebook, and Twitter as our main channels. In addition, we decided to write articles with specific mediums in mind so that our article would both get views and follow the social norms of the platforms. Throughout this project we learned lessons that will help us moving forward in our careers. Stay tuned while we discuss three factors that had the biggest impact on our blog posts.

1. What is the value of a six second duration session of a Reddit User?

The Social Media Bunnies undertook our competition for viewers (sessions), click-through (bounce-rate), and length of time on the site (session duration). When writing articles, we considered the medium when deciding on a topic for the week. While considering the channel for certain topics, we did not originally consider the effect of these channels on the metrics we were measuring.

Reddit and Tumblr campaigns caused the number of sessions to skyrocket in a short amount of time, with the page duration inversely plummeting toward zero.

Earlier Sharings of Reddit & Tumblr Fame – Analytics

The 2,121 viewers during this time period solidified the Social Media Bunnies’ place as #1 for the number of sessions. In the past weeks, we have focused on sharing through Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn as our channels of choice. The effect on page duration and bounce rates is staggering.

Past Week of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn Sharing – Analytics

When comparing these strategies, another question comes to mind. In the ever changing world of social media and content marketing, what is the value of a six second session from a Reddit user? Did the content soak into the viewer’s brain during those six seconds, enough to make a lasting or at least subconscious impression? The overarching question of numbers vs. substance comes to mind. In our case, the numbers won while the duration lagged behind.

2. Social Norms and Mediums of Choice

It is crucial to understand the micro-cultures on each of the websites that you choose to engage in, tone and ideas can make or break your article. Posting and engaging in the domains you are most familiar with is strongly advised It also helps to use the resources you have at your disposal, such as knowing your neighbor is a strong influencer on Twitter. Catering your content to your strengths can get you a running head start to achieving your goals.

Social Media Bunnies wrote a Pokémon article because one member had a large network for Pokémon on Tumblr. However, because we wrote the article with a negative spin Reddit reacted badly. Reddit didn’t like how we talked about Pokémon Go needing to be revived because they were still very much active in the game. If we had written the article or at least titled it with a more positive spin, Reddit may have reacted more positively. However on Tumblr it did very well and due in part to having an engaging and original photo that was enticing to click.

We made a crucial mistake with “Apple Goes to the Dark Side”. We were able to keep the article on the first page of the Apple subreddit and getting a landslide of viewers, we violated one of the subreddit rules that forbids users from posting their own content. We would have gotten away with it but we reacted to comments in an attempt to increase engagement and the subreddit realized that we had posted our own content. As a result, the article was taken down and our largest sources of (potentially viral) views was cut off. In addition, one of the Bunnies was banned from Reddit.

Social Media channels are designed for connection. But the connections have norms of engagement, and the network is not forgiving if you violate their rules

3. Dropping the Ball on Bounce Rates

Bounce rate is the percentage of users who land on your website and decide to leave without going to a second page. A higher bounce rate, such as our bounce rate of 95%, indicates that we were not successful in convincing users to stay on our page to digest our material. Our team could/should have counteracted this by incorporating more links and/or multiple pages into our material. This would have been the best strategy to keep users on our pages, however we failed to incorporate this piece of advice. Any bounce rate above 80% is considered very poor by Google Analytics standards and even 70-80% is not is not ideal. One of our biggest problems in this regard is that we boosted our posts on sites such as Reddit and Tumblr, which are not known for creating low bounce rates.

The lowest bounce rate we achieved, was 40% from an email campaign from our United Airlines article. This is only based off of five sessions which suggests that linking our material to the most intended audience, was the most effective way to bring down bounce rates.

Recently, one of our Bunnies did go through and added relevant outside links to such articles as “Apple Goes To The Dark Side”. While we are still waiting to see the result of this effort, we are confident that it will bring down the bounce rate over time and encourage search engine optimization.

Analytics by Landing Page

The End Result

Analytics Overview by Campaign

Throughout this experience the Social Media Bunnies succeeded in our goal of garnering the largest number of views but fell short in the duration and bounce rate categories. Our primary mediums of Reddit and Tumblr were conducive to this sort of outcome. Connecting our content to trending topics in the social media sphere, such as Star Wars, Apple, Pokémon, and United Airlines, enhanced the effect of our chosen channels. The flashy name on the content can get clicks, but to be able to appeal to all the various segments within this interest group is a task for only the most herculean marketers.

In these digital times, companies have started shifting their marketing efforts to the social media world, and with good reason too with more than 70% of the world’s population being on a social media platform.

But what separates the companies who do their research and implement a social media strategy that represents the brand accurately and the companies who kick down the social media responsibilities to the interns???

1) Wendy’s vs. Burger King

We are kicking off this Corporate Social Media Cage Match episode with two fast food favorites. The ginger haired, square-patty serving burger joint vs the self-proclaimed monarch of whopper burgers. For this match we will be looking at their twitter “feed”.

Round 1: Comedy

Comedy is a great way to engage your audience, however it can be hard to get the secret (comedy) formula right…..

Wendy’s start off with posting a quote from a fan-favorite TV show.

How does BK attempt comedy?

After that cringe-worthy attempt of a joke……

Winner: Wendy’s

Round 2: Life Advice

Some of the most influential twitter users offer the best advice, let’s see what advice these french fry peddlers offer to their followers.

BK gives comedy another try, infusing it with advice

What does Wendy’s do???

Winner: Wendy’s

Round 3: Head to Head

Sometimes you have to bring the fight to the competition. Its a risky move but the payoff can be incredible especially if the whole twitter-verse witnesses the exchange.

Ding! Ding! Ding! Knockout!

Overall Winner: Wendy’s

2) Samsung vs. Apple

Our next bout involves two tech giants that have had a back and forth battle for a spot in people’s pockets for the last few years. Let’s see how these companies are representing themselves across social media platforms.

Round 1: Twitter

Samsung starts off the twitter round with a creative approach to communicate with their followers.

How does Apple respond???

Winner: Samsung (by default I guess)

Round 2: Instagram

Next up let’s see how these Smart rectangle-producing firms represent themselves on the trendy/artsy Instagram

Winner: Uhhh Samsung? (Wait does Apple seriously have no Instagram?)

Round 3: Facebook

…….???

Winner:…this is getting ridiculous

Overall Winner: Samsung…but really wtf Apple???

3) IHOP vs. Denny’s

Introducing IHOP and Denny’s as the competitors for our thrid match-up. These fast-breaking diners are coming out strong tonight for this first round.

Round 1: The category is………twitter description taglines

Denny’s is playing it safe this round, and employs “Welcome to America’s Dinner” for their first move.

IHOP retaliates by turning up the creepy relative at a family holiday gathering factor, employing “Eat up Every Moment”. Props for design, though. It’s up to the judges now.

After half a second of collaboration, the Social Media Bunnies come back with a decision. The win goes to ……. Denny’s!

Round 2: Turning up the heat a bit, the next category will be……Tumblr

As Denny’s won the last round, they have the right to make the first move. With an unprecedented gesture, Denny’s concedes the starting move to IHOP.

Hesitating with confusion, IHOP considers their strategy. After 15 excruciatingly long seconds, IHOP tentatively reels back and releases their first punch.

Denny’s pauses for a moment, and then deals their next move with a flashy display.

The crowd goes wild! From the sheer number of notes alone, the winner seems inevitable. The judges turn to give each other thoughtful glances, and then raise all 10’s to the Denny’s Tumblr Engagement.

The match seems all but over, yet…. Let’s give IHOP a chance to redeem themselves.

Round 3: For the final round the category will be…… Facebook Valentine’s Day posts

Denny takes their chance to make the first move, stunning the crowd with:

The skill, the mastery, the love…. But the jury’s not out yet. IHOP, take your turn.

IHOP passes on the round, but takes the time to update their cover photo.

FINAL VICTOR: Denny’s

4) JCPenney vs. Nordstrom

Here we have JC Penney and Nordstrom’s battling it out for for the social media strategy belt.

Round 1: The first round is….Taglines!

JCPenney has employed their first bit of humor here…as in “Get Your Penney’s Worth.” Props for cleverness, JCP.

Nordstrom, however, took the more “sophisticated” route and chose to stick with what they know…their name.

After much deliberation, the judges agree the R1 Win goes to…..JCP!!

Round 2: Tumblr

Alrighty, let’s give Nordstrom a chance to redeem themselves. Back during Fashion Week they were invited to attend a bouncy house fashion show – as bouncy house connoisseurs we can only assume our invite was lost in the mail.

In an effort to beat the coolest house on the planet is JCP with Barney Stinson’s famous quote, quite appropriate for their suit shop, I must say.

After much discussion, the judges have gone with Nordstrom! You just can’t beat that bouncy house, sorry JCP.

Round 3: Lastly, let’s take a look at those “That was awk….” moments and how each contender handled them…

First up is Nordstrom. The judges are presently confused if Kevin’s comment is a good thing or a bad thing…Nordstrom seems to lean towards the positive side…maybe a little too positive..anyone else wondering what other “adulting activities” they’re referring to?

Moving on to JCP…Remember when they came out with that tea kettle that possessed some striking similarities to Hitler? Well, turns out some customers were not happy about it, and filled JCP’s feed with some pretty mean posts. Clearly they didn’t intend for this look-a-like and tried to better the solution with a little Christmas Spirit.

JCP takes the round! (and is given extra time to rid its warehouse of any evil teapots before we announce the winner)

And the final victor issssss: JCP for their clever and humorous social media strategy!!

5) Adidas vs. Nike

In the final match of the “social media cage match” we will see two competitive sports apparel companies go “toe to toe”

Hailing all the way from Herzogenaurach, Germany we have the veteran …Adidas

ROUND 1: Twitter

Starting off strong with consistent posting and creative content that inspires followers.

And the challenger claiming the pacific northwest as it’s home…NIKE! Let’s see how they respond to Adidas:

They respond with really high engagement on their posts, however they are very inconsistent in their posting schedule, posting every two weeks is not a wise thing to do on a social media platform that favors active users.

Although it was close this round goes to ADIDAS!

ROUND 2: Facebook

Next these two companies will duke it out on the most popular social media platform of the world….Facebook. “If you’re not on Facebook you don’t exist…”

This time Nike kicks off the round with a very strong presence on the social media giant, more consistent posting than their twitter , consistent theme that works well with the company culture

How will Adidas react to this strong Facebook presence?

…With an equally strong presence, Adidas Facebook page has as many followers as Nike and it has virtually equal follower engagement.

This is a close round with both companies having their FB presence dialed down to fit both their company culture and the demographics on the platform.

So this round is a TIE!!!

The last and final round we will see these companies slug it out on a combination of popular social media graphic sites: Tumblr, and Instagram

Both of these platforms are known to cater to a more fashion conscious demographic with a preference for aesthetic images.

So how will Adidas start this round:

They start off by focusing their energy and resources promoting their fashion line of clothing. Aesthetic pictures with regular people wearing their trendy clothes.

Extremely high notes and likes from the TUMBLR audience as well!

Nike has got a lot of catching up to do, how will they engage with this fashion savvy audience…

…with regurgitated content from their other social media sites. It’s great to have a consistent presence on the web but these graphics and themes just don’t fit with the Instagram “culture.”

How about their Tumblr….

They are absent on the social media website known to start fashion trends.

After that very decisively dominant round, we have our final winner….ADIDAS!